Current Petitions
Scottish Transport Group Pension Funds (PE500)
It is suggested that we deal first with petition PE500. A number of MSPs who would like to speak to the petition are present. The petition relates to Scottish Transport Group pension funds.
Members will recall that in September we considered a further response from the Deputy Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning and agreed to write to him again requesting that the committee be notified when the outstanding reply from the Inland Revenue had been received. I have received a response from the deputy minister that covers two main issues, which are set out in the cover note.
The first point relates to the £50 million that has been transferred to the UK Exchequer. The minister has replied to the effect that there is no legal entitlement for that money to go anywhere other than the Treasury. The Scottish Executive's budget has been adjusted to take account of the fact that £50 million has been given to the Treasury.
Secondly, the Inland Revenue has said that there is no case for the pensioners to be given special treatment and that the lump sum payments will be taxed. The sponsors of the petition, together with a delegation of Scottish MPs and Transport and General Workers Union members, will meet representatives of the Inland Revenue to discuss the tax rules.
We now know that £50 million has been remitted to the Treasury and that double taxation will continue because the Inland Revenue does not think that there is a case for not taxing the payments.
I want to comment on Lewis Macdonald's reply, in which he states:
"agreement was reached in December 2000 which would give Scottish pensioners an outcome which was broadly comparable with their English colleagues."
That is not true.
To try to justify his statement, Lewis Macdonald goes on to say that the initial negotiations were based on the anticipated average payments that the National Bus Company pensioners would receive. That average payment was £7,000 per pensioner. If you multiply that by 14,000—the approximate number of Scottish pensioners and deferred pensioners—you get a sum of £98 million, which has been rounded up to £100 million to try to make it look like a generous offer.
The fact is that the surplus per capita in the Scottish scheme was considerably more than the surplus per capita in the English scheme. That is partly because the Scottish pensioners contributed for longer. Therefore, it would be fairer to base the negotiations on the percentage share of the surplus that the English pensioners received. The English pensioners received about 60 per cent of their surplus and the Treasury received about 40 per cent. In Scotland, the reverse has happened. The Scottish pensioners are being offered only about 40 per cent of their surplus while the Treasury will pocket 60 per cent. That takes into account corporation tax, income tax and the £50 million from the surplus itself.
Lewis Macdonald has not addressed that point in his letter. I think that we should write back to him on that specific point. He says that it is entirely
"a matter for the UK Exchequer",
but the amount on offer is the result of negotiations between the Scottish Executive and the UK Exchequer, and under the existing proposals the pensioners are being sold short. Lewis Macdonald should be asked to renegotiate.
I turn to the taxation matter that Lewis Macdonald also mentioned. The Inland Revenue is saying that the Scottish pensioners will have to pay tax on their ex gratia payments because they are not payments directly from a pension fund. However, they are payments arising from a pension fund surplus. The Inland Revenue is saying that lump sum payments from a pension fund are tax-free, but lump sum payments from a pension fund surplus are not tax-free. That seems to be inconsistent.
Lewis Macdonald has been in contact with Ruth Kelly, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. She has also written to me. She has agreed to meet a delegation of Scottish MPs and members of the Transport and General Workers Union. It is fair enough that the UK Exchequer and the Inland Revenue are accountable to the Westminster Parliament rather than the Scottish Parliament, but members of the Scottish Parliament and of this committee have been doing all the running on this issue. With a few notable exceptions, Westminster MPs have shown little interest in or knowledge of the matter.
I think that we should write to Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer and as an MP who represents a Scottish constituency and ask him to meet a delegation of MSPs. More important, the delegation should include members of the Scottish Transport Group pensioners action committee and its adviser, Derek Scott.
To sum up, I suggest two courses of action. First, we should write back to Lewis Macdonald telling him that we are not satisfied with his response and urging him to renegotiate so that the Scottish pensioners get at least 60 per cent of the surplus and so achieve parity with their English counterparts. Secondly, I suggest that we write to Gordon Brown and ask him to meet a delegation.
The pensioners have been the victims of a real injustice. It is one of the most serious that has occurred since the Parliament was created. I recently met a widow who, although she behaved with extreme dignity, was extremely upset and angry at the way in which the memory of her late husband has been treated.
I have some specific points. As I recall, just before the summer recess, the committee—to its credit—expressed broad consensual support for a number of measures. Those measures were set out in a letter to the minister.
One of those measures was that widows and widowers should receive the full payment that their loved one would have received had he or she survived, not the 50 per cent payment that many of them are receiving. Perhaps the committee was persuaded by the logic that whoever was responsible for the 10-year delay, it was not the widows, the widowers and the members of the pension fund. Whether the Government or the trustees were responsible is irrelevant. The delay has meant that, in most cases, the widows and widowers will receive only one half of the payment. I feel that that is insupportable. The minister should come before the committee to explain why that decision was made.
Although I have yet to have this confirmed in writing, my understanding is that those widows or widowers whose spouses died on or after 18 December 2000 will receive the full payment. That is yet to be confirmed, so I want to be careful about it, but if that is the case, it is a partial concession and it is a tribute to the work of the committee that it has been obtained. I believe that it has been obtained, but I have not had that confirmed in writing and I think that it should be made clear.
It was confirmed in a letter to the committee. We discussed it at the meeting on 10 September.
I then spoke to another widow on the telephone. She is not my constituent but I spoke to her after speaking to the local constituency MSP, Alasdair Morgan. She broke down. She thought that for some widows to receive the full payment and some to receive a half payment was a mockery. It just could not be justified. The minister has some explaining to do.
From a practical point of view, the money that is available for the payments might well allow for full payment without any increase in the overall total. There were 14,000 beneficiaries initially. Some pensioners will have died without leaving eligible beneficiaries such as widows, widowers or offspring. In such cases, the share that the Executive has earmarked for those people will fall into the money that is available for eventual redistribution to all the beneficiaries. We have also had specific confirmation that the residue of the surplus, if you like, will not go to Gordon Brown; it will go to the remaining beneficiaries. Members might not be surprised to learn that I have asked a few parliamentary questions to ascertain how many beneficiaries have been identified at this stage. Although it is early days, perhaps the estimated remaining residue of the surplus that could go to the widows could be calculated. That is a priority.
I also want to talk about tax. I will not repeat what Dennis Canavan said, but it is outrageous that, because of a technicality, Scottish pensioners have to pay tax and English pensioners do not. We should examine the Act of Union 1707 to see whether there has been a breach of that piece of legislation. I am not a fan of it, but it is there and it should be enforceable. It is outrageous that Scottish people should be taxed and English people should not purely because of an absurd technicality.
I endorse Dennis Canavan's suggestion that Gordon Brown should meet a delegation of MSPs. I also invite the committee to consider that, if we cannot get an answer to the questions, Mr Brown should be invited to give evidence to the committee and explain why Scots have to pay income tax when it is not payable by English people. Surely that is a breach of the Act of Union 1707. The reasons given in justification of the decision are patently without any merit and are absurd.
I hope that I have made my two points in a reasonably cogent way.
On your point about the Act of Union 1707, the pensioners are not being treated differently because some of them are Scottish and some of them are English. They are being treated differently because one group was in a tax-approved pension scheme and the other group was in an unapproved retirement benefit scheme. The position has nothing to do with their national origin. The Act of Union 1707 does not come into consideration of the issue. However, we can certainly pursue the difference between the two schemes.
It is really a war of words. Dennis Canavan put the issue very clearly, in slight contradiction to what you have just said. Why is there one law for tax on pension funds and a different law for tax on surplus pension funds? They are only words—and words that are being used to cause an injustice. We should be very careful how we interpret them. That is my first point.
I remember well when Lewis Macdonald came before our committee and was quite severely cross-examined. I remember him assuring us that he would not just write a letter but would seek to persuade personally. That was his assurance—certainly to me—but he has not done that. All that he has done is written a letter. He says in his letter of 30 September, "I wrote to", and he was quite happy with a letter back. That is not what he agreed to do. We insisted that he should seek to persuade of the justice of this case, which we are all concerned about. He has not done that, and I think that he should be asked why he did not do that, as he promised the committee he would.
Apart from all the other comments, I agree that we should bring Gordon Brown here. I would fairly enjoy that, if I am still here.
The situation concerning the Treasury is such that Gordon Brown, or someone, should be accountable. There is a big difference between being an iron chancellor and simply being a callous person who seems to have lost the moral compass. On Thursday, a similar situation will be highlighted, as thalidomide survivors are coming to the Parliament. Other chancellors in the rest of Europe do not stoop to taking tax from thalidomide survivors; Gordon Brown does. The situation that Dennis Canavan has described has been running for almost as long as the thalidomide situation in terms of the period over which people have paid into funds. Mr Brown should really be the number 1 target.
Our big problem is that we are dealing with two quite different things, as the English pension plan allowed for the surplus to be redistributed and the Scottish one did not. We must try to get a derogation, because, legally, there is probably not an awful lot that can be done, because of the way in which the pension plan was set up. We need a one-off decision that would exempt the Scottish pensioners from having to pay tax. I do not know whether that is possible. Can we find out whether it is possible to get a derogation?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has already said that there is no case for special treatment in this instance, so I assume that that rules out a derogation.
She may have said that there will be no special treatment, but what we are getting here is discriminatory treatment. What about that for a starting point?
We are in a difficult position. The fact that the money has already gone back to the Treasury and that the Inland Revenue has nothing to do with the Scottish Executive makes it difficult to approach Lewis Macdonald on those issues. Dennis Canavan's suggestion that we write to Gordon Brown asking him to meet a delegation of MSPs and pensioner representatives to discuss the issues would be a good way forward. At the same time, we could write to Lewis Macdonald reminding him of the points that Winnie Ewing raised and asking him to address the question of the 60 per cent surplus in England compared with the 40 per cent in Scotland. We could also ask him about the point that Fergus Ewing raised—whether it would be possible within existing totals to make 100 per cent payments to the widows because of the slack inside the system. That would keep the matter going anyway, and would keep the fight up.
It may just be that Gordon Brown will agree to meet a delegation of MSPs. If we were to send out a demand that he come here, it would become too political and we would not be helping the pensioners. We are trying to help the pensioners. If we approach Gordon Brown in the right manner, he may well agree to talk to people, rather than being hauled before the committee. In any case, we could not haul him before the committee; we do not have any power to do that and he could simply say no.
Maybe there is decency tucked away somewhere. He might offer to come.
He is certainly welcome to come. However, in the first instance, I think that we should write to him, as Dennis Canavan suggested, asking him whether he will meet a delegation of MSPs. It will be a matter for the pensioners themselves to decide which MSPs to take with them. I do not think that members of the committee should necessarily go. Do members agree to take those two courses of action—writing back to Lewis Macdonald about the points that were raised and writing to Gordon Brown asking him to meet a delegation of pensioners?
I have just one further point, which perhaps I should have raised earlier. We have been told only that the average payment to an NBC pensioner was £7,000. Could we ask for confirmation that that was the average and for full details of the computation, the number of pensioners and how the average was calculated?
We would need to ask Gordon Brown for that, because the Scottish Executive does not have that information. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank members for attending.
Saltire (PE512)
Gil Paterson is present to discuss petition PE512, so we will bring that forward. I am sorry that we are jumping about a bit on the agenda, but a large number of MSPs are in attendance this morning.
Petition PE512 is from Mr George Reid and is on the saltire flag. It calls on the Parliament to endorse the 1989 guidance that the Ministry of Defence published, which defines the blue of the saltire as azure, and urges the Executive to publish guidance on the matter.
The committee will remember that, initially, we received the wrong information that the matter was reserved. The Lord Lyon King of Arms said that the matter was devolved to the Scottish Parliament and we wrote back to the Executive for its views. The Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice provided a detailed response and we also have a response from the Heraldry Society of Scotland, which backs up the Deputy First Minister. They both say that the issuing of guidance or the introduction of regulations would be unnecessary and would create more difficulties than it might solve. They believe that no evidence suggests that abuse of the design or colour of the saltire is widespread, so the Executive will not issue the proposed guidance.
The matter seems a wee bit trivial. I have sat through all the committee's deliberations this morning and the committee has considered some heavy matters, not least the petition on pensions. I wanted to be involved in that discussion, but I knew that I could not be.
I have never claimed to be an expert on anything, but I can claim to be an expert on colour. That is my profession. I have been involved in the business of colour for 30 years. The business that I own—but no longer operate—can come up with a colour for anyone who phones from anywhere in the world. We have about 2 million formulations on record. If someone picks up the phone and calls one of my businesses, we will deliver a specific colour over the phone. That happens all day every day in my business.
No advertising is allowed here.
My business and every other business in colour operate with numbers. The system goes back to its invention by the Chinese. People do not talk greys, blues or whites, but numbers. In the UK, we talk about British standard numbers. There are German RAL colours, which are standard colours. All over the world, people work to standards. Standards exist for clothing—for the wool and the cloth that people wear—for the paint on the walls, for the cars that we drive and for print materials. We need some form of identification to work from.
I am holding up the Scottish Parliament logo, which has a colour. I could call that colour one name and I am sure that everyone else would call it something different, but the person who ordered the headed paper for us would have been asked, "How much paper do you want?" and "What colour do you want the logo in?" That person would have quoted a reference number for the colour of the heading.
The situation is extraordinarily strange. We in the Parliament are the only people with the authority to put a number on the colour of the Scottish flag. The petitioner is not asking for a decision for down the line, once a flag has weathered, which has been talked about. A pigment can be produced that can be put on a flag or anything and will never weather—it stays the same colour. If someone damaged their 50-year-old car today and wanted it repaired, they would want it and expect it to be repaired in the same colour. That is just how it is. The determining factor is the colour that is produced at the start—not the colour after five or 10 years of weathering—which should be of the same value.
The petitioner is looking for the Parliament to take the simple responsibility for designating a colour. Every other country that I know of, including England, designates the colour of its flag.
Let us suppose that Jack McConnell decides to go to America sometime next year or the year after, and someone says to him, "Glad to see you're coming, First Minister. We're going to manufacture 1,000 flags to put up on the flagpoles. What colour do you want them?" He might say, "Just make them blue." "What shade of blue?" he might then be asked. "Och, anything you like," he might reply. That would be so ridiculous. We want the answer to be, "Here's the reference number for the colour of those flags." For the Executive to put out such a stupid message to professionals all over the world, that we do not know the colour of our flag and cannot designate a reference, is highly insulting.
I hate to have to go on about this—flags do not clothe us, feed us or make us rich. In fact, they do not do anything for us other than identify us. The matter may seem trivial compared with other, weighty subjects, but it is certainly petty and trivial for the Executive to supply a response such as the one that it has issued. The Executive wants its backside kicked, and its response should be sent back. It should give us a reference. It is its responsibility.
Right—that was some passion delivered there. I do not know anything about the designation of numbers to colours. You are calling for the flag colour to be designated by number. Does that mean that all flags that are produced or manufactured would have to be specified according to that number? There would then be problems of monitoring, to ensure that people abide by the specification. Any number of people in Scotland sell flags.
It is a straightforward technicality. When someone makes an order, they are asked what colour they want and they give a number.
What I am trying to get at is the fact that it would not be mandatory. The Parliament can designate a certain number of blue—
Exactly. That is the point.
But people would be free to use other numbers of blue if they wished.
You know the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk". We do not want "Jack and the Flagpole", with Jack climbing up to check the colour of all the flags.
That could not be done.
Of course not. This is not about regulation, or whether all flags are of the same colour: it is about who is responsible for designating the colour so that when flag manufacturers all over the world—a lot of flags are made in China now—make the flags, they all start off the same colour. The responsibility is not to have all the flags the same colour today, but to ensure that they are all the same colour when they are manufactured.
It happens that the saltire has been chosen, but why not solve the whole problem by switching to the lion rampant, which is much cheerier?
We would still need a colour.
We would still need a yellow—with the Queen's permission.
I call Phil Gallie.
What has the Queen got to do with it?
And we would need to consult the Lord Lyon.
I must admit that, until Gil Paterson spoke, I would have been happy to go along with Jim Wallace's comments. I then started to think about colour references. I think that Gil's approach is right. We are not talking about a mandatory colour; we are not trying to bring in regulation. All we are saying is that there should be a base colour, or standard colour—a particular number of blue—which everybody should aim for. There is an element of sense in what Gil Paterson said, which I appreciate. He has changed my opinion. That is a good thing.
And Phil Gallie is the expert on blue.
Let me suggest that, in the light of Gil Paterson's contribution, we write back to the Executive, asking it whether it would be prepared simply to designate the colour for the national flag, using numbers. That requires no monitoring or mandatory guidance. It would be a matter of designating an official colour for the Scottish flag. That is all we are asking the Executive to do.
I would be happy to give the Executive 30 years of my experience. It is there to be picked up.
I hope that you are not looking for contracts.
No.
Is that course of action agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. Let us get back to the agenda. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but we will have to jump around again. Another member has joined us—we are very popular this morning. We will deal with petition PE517 next.
Water Treatment Plants (PE517)
This petition deals with water treatment plants, in particular the one at Seafield, Edinburgh.
Members may remember that we resolved to write to a series of groups about the problem of odour. I invite Susan Deacon, the constituency MSP to join us for our consideration of petition PE517.
We have received fairly detailed responses from the Scottish Executive, Scottish Water, the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. I am not sure whether Susan Deacon has had an opportunity to see all the detailed responses.
No, I have not.
Do you want to say anything at this stage?
I will keep my comments brief, as I realise the committee is pressed for time. I am delighted, as are the local residents, that the Public Petitions Committee has carried out even the preliminary work that it has undertaken. The problem is one that the local community has experienced for decades. The substantial investment in the Seafield waste water treatment works over the past few years changed the community's expectations. Indeed, Scottish Water and others created the real expectation that the odour problem would be resolved once and for all, but that was not the case and it is not what has happened.
As recently as last weekend, I was made aware that powerful odours were emanating from the treatment plant. When petition PE517 was lodged, I expressed my view in a letter to the committee. In it I said that there needs to be a resolution of the odour problem that emanates from the Seafield waste water treatment works as it affects my constituents in the Leith Links area of Edinburgh. I am determined to ensure that the problem is resolved, as are the local residents who have attended the meeting today.
A bigger issue arises from the case. The regulatory regime that governs smells from facilities is at best confusing and overly complex; at worst, it is inadequate. The problem that my constituents experience is not isolated. It highlights a number of wider problems and limitations in the operation of such plants now and in the future.
I believe firmly that this is the sort of issue that the Scottish Parliament should examine. In so doing, the Parliament will help to maintain the necessary pressure to ensure a resolution—once and for all—of the Seafield situation. If the Public Petitions Committee refers petition PE517 to one of the subject committees, the Parliament could pursue the issue further. I hope that that would allow us to see improvements across Scotland in future.
The facilities are necessary—I will say no more than that. We all recognise that they are of vital importance, but they should not operate at the expense of a local community having to live week in week out with vile smells. That is what is happening at the moment. The situation is unacceptable, given that we have the necessary investment and the technology is available.
I am shocked to read in the clerks' paper that SEPA does not want to have anything to do with the odours.
It has no powers.
No powers? Who on earth established SEPA in such a ridiculous way that it has responsibility for effluent but none for odours? Legislation might be required to change the situation, which is horrendous.
I understand that odour is settled by planning or nuisance legislation. Nuisance legislation often requires litigation, but without legal aid most people are not prepared to become litigants. I also understand that, as the local authority is both the planning authority and the owner, no planning conditions could be attached to the plant. Although conditions could not be attached, they could have been agreed voluntarily.
Susan Deacon rightly said that there is a lot of confusion about how the public is to be protected in these sorts of situations. Indeed, because of the stupid way in which SEPA was established, the public is not protected. If action is to be left to nuisance legislation, we might as well say goodbye to any remedy. It is a poor situation if the public cannot be protected against bad smells.
I am concerned about situations such as this where the local authority is both the planning authority and the owner and planning conditions are not attached to the development. We need to be mindful of such situations. I have been involved in a planning committee that has attached 50 or 60 conditions to a planning application. Agreement to an application is given on the basis that the conditions are adhered to. There is a bigger problem when conditions are not attached to applications. We have to consider that.
I am pleased that one of the recommendations is that we refer the petition to the Transport and the Environment Committee. I hope that it will take the points on board, because they cover an important aspect of planning. I have been involved in smells, not only from sewage treatment works but from paper mills and fish factories. Some people in Scotland like the smell from breweries, but others do not. There is a big issue around odours, not just in this context, and we should ask the Transport and the Environment Committee to consider it.
Perhaps the more serious point is that SEPA cannot get involved in air pollution, which is a health and safety matter. Therefore there is no contradiction in the fact that it cannot deal with odours.
The petition has been useful in the sense that it has highlighted serious flaws in the system as it operates in Scotland. I suggest that we agree to refer the petition to the Transport and the Environment Committee with the recommendation that it considers further the effectiveness of current planning and environmental legislation and enforcement procedures covering odours from sewage treatment plants. We could also ask the committee to consider whether there is a case for an enhanced role for SEPA in regulating such odours. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Allergy Clinics (PE276)
This is the third time we have tried to get back to the agenda. We will try to get through it as quickly as we can. The petition is from the Lothian allergy support group, which calls on the Parliament to establish specialist clinics for the diagnosis and treatment of allergies in national health service hospitals in Scotland.
Members will remember that there was confusion about the initial responses from the Scottish Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee and the Executive. We wrote to the Executive asking for a clearer statement, which has now come back in detailed form.
The Executive's response appears to be positive. Although it makes clear that it cannot get involved in treatment issues or the provision of local services by NHS boards, it has indicated a readiness to explore the potential benefits of a managed clinical network option for allergy services. The Executive is willing to discuss the scope and geographic extent of such networks and the alternative use of funding that is earmarked for an additional consultant post in Lothian.
The petitioners' views about the current deficiencies in service provision would also be taken into account and if proposals were to be developed, further discussions would include patients' representatives and health professionals who are involved in the provision of allergy services. It is suggested that the Executive's response be copied to the petitioners, to establish whether they are content with what has been proposed, and to the Health and Community Care Committee.
I am especially pleased about the Executive's response, because the Public Petitions Committee has been positive from the start about reacting to such issues. I was particularly pleased to note that the Executive has offered to meet the petitioners to explore further how various information can be made more widely available. I feel that we do not know enough about allergies. We need to do a lot more work, because they can affect people significantly. I am pleased with the Executive's response and I would be interested to hear what the petitioners say about it.
Allergies are on the increase among children.
Peatland Conservation (PE301)
Petition PE301 is from Mr Steve Sankey, on behalf of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, on proposals for additional Scottish peatland habitats that would be candidates for designation as special areas of conservation.
Members will remember that we had a response from the Executive and decided to consult the Scottish Wildlife Trust to get its comments. It has confirmed that it is content with the Executive's designation of four additional raised peatland sites and regards the issues that it raised in the petition as having been addressed. The Scottish Wildlife Trust thanks the committee for its assistance in realising its objective. In the light of that positive outcome, it is suggested that we agree that action on the petition be concluded. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Steiner Waldorf Education (PE457)
We agreed to write to the Scottish Executive on the application by the supporters of Steiner Waldorf education for it to be part of the publicly funded sector. We sought views from the Scottish Executive and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which are set out in the papers that members have.
There are two responses from COSLA. The first came from Helen Law, who is COSLA's education spokesperson. She indicated that she had not taken the actions that some of the petitioners suggested she had. She said that she had made no comment about Steiner Waldorf education.
We also received an official response from COSLA's education executive group. Members can see that there is no legal barrier that prevents education authorities buying places for pupils in Steiner Waldorf schools or providing support for the schools in other ways. The Executive response makes it clear that ministers would want to consider any change in the status or current funding arrangements of Steiner Waldorf education in the wider context of the national debate on education. If Steiner schools were to become part of the publicly funded education sector, they would be required to commit to the statutory education framework.
COSLA does not advocate public funding for Steiner Waldorf provision on the basis that doing so would create a precedent for other parents who wished to pursue independent schooling for their children.
We have two options. We can agree with the Executive view, which is that the national debate on education provides a forum for discussion on the potential of Steiner Waldorf schools to contribute further to the publicly funded sector, and take no further action. Alternatively, we can pass the petition on to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.
I understand that the standard required for teachers in Steiner schools is not uniformly the same as that required under our education acts. They cannot expect us to put an umbrella over Steiner schools in toto when they do not obey the normal standards.
That point was made by the Executive. If Steiner schools were to come into the publicly funded sector, they would need to work within the framework that is set down by the Executive.
Given the importance of the subject to many people, we should let the Education, Culture and Sport Committee consider the issue.
We could certainly pass the petition to that committee. Whether that committee will be able to respond between now and next March is another question.
The Education, Culture and Sport Committee would need to determine that issue for itself. I think that it is worth passing the petition on.
We could have a mix between the two options before us. In recognition of Phil Gallie's point, which was that many people believe in Steiner Waldorf education, we could encourage the Steiner Waldorf people to contribute to the national debate on education and steer them in the direction of that forum. We could also refer the petition to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. I am concerned that the petition might not feature highly in that committee's agenda. Nevertheless, we could do both of those things without creating any problems.
Okay. We will formally refer the petition to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. We will let the petitioners know that we have done that and direct them towards the national debate on education.
Convener, I want to check what you said a moment ago about the March deadline. When the Scottish Parliament was established, I understood that, unlike Westminster, business could be carried over across parliamentary sessions. If the Education, Culture and Sport Committee has not dealt with the petition by March, could not the new education committee after the election address it?
I think that the procedure is that when the committees are wound up, any outstanding petitions will be referred back to us. The proposal is that such petitions would be held by the Public Petitions Committee until after the election, when they would be redistributed to the subject committees.
Okay.
Stone of Scone (PE505)
The next petition is PE505 from Robbie the Pict on behalf of the Scottish People's Mission. The petition is about the restoration of the stone of Scone to the community of Scone.
Members will recall that there was some misunderstanding, in that the petitioner said that the main point of his petition was to investigate the ownership of the stone. He also wanted to find out whether the courts should decide whether the stone was stolen from Scotland in the 14th century—or whatever century it was.
When we last considered the petition, we decided to approach the Executive only about moving the stone to Scone. Both the Executive and VisitScotland have responded by saying that they would not favour such a move. They think that the stone should be kept in Edinburgh. We must now decide whether there is a sufficiently strong argument in favour of referring the petition to a subject committee or whether we should agree to take no further action and inform the petitioner.
We should take no further action.
Perth and Kinross Council did not press for the stone to be returned. It was worried about security.
Is it agreed that we take no further action?
Members indicated agreement.
Postal Delivery Service (PE513)
We have agreed to pair Phil Gallie's petition, PE513, with petition PE542, which we heard earlier this morning. It is suggested that we deal with both petitions when we get the full Executive response. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Museum Hall (Bridge of Allan) (PE518)
The final current petition is PE518. The petitioners, who are concerned about Historic Scotland's failure to protect the museum hall in Bridge of Allan from unlawful neglect, are calling for a plan to restore the museum hall to be put in place.
We have received a detailed response from Historic Scotland, which makes it clear that Historic Scotland is of the view that it has acted correctly. The response states that, although the outcome is not the ideal solution, it is
"a permissible and reasonable compromise in the particular circumstances pertaining at the site".
Following a Court of Session ruling giving permission for the sale of the hall, development proposals are being prepared that would retain the hall's front elevation. Therefore, there seems no possibility that Historic Scotland will initiate an action plan to save the hall in its entirety, which is what the petition calls for.
Although the petitioners' concerns are understandable, Historic Scotland's response and the actions taken by the council appear to be reasonable. It is therefore suggested that we agree to take no further action on the petition and inform the petitioners. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Carbeth Hutters (Petition PE14)
Dorothy-Grace Elder has received a reply from the Carbeth hutters, who previously lodged a petition that was debated in Parliament. In the wake of that debate, a number of recommendations were made for changes in legislation. Although the Executive accepted the recommendations, it appears that absolutely no action has been taken. The question is whether we should pass the issue back to the committee that dealt with the petition or whether we ourselves should chase up the Executive.
I also received a letter, which gave the names of those whose possessions were taken away from the huts without their permission.
I suggest that our clerks liaise with the clerks to the justice committees to follow up the issue. We cannot just let the matter go.
The Justice and Home Affairs Committee produced a report on the Carbeth hutters.